The image of the child molester is an anti-social white male in his thirties or
forties. With this as the typical image of the child molester, then the typical
victim is a girl around the age of 10 to 14. If boys are considered victims, the
perpetrator is usually considered a male homosexual. In those instances where a
boy is sexually abused by a woman, this is considered at best an abnormality if
it's even considered molestation. Most times, molested boys are considered lucky
or fortunate to learn 'the ropes' at an early age from an experienced woman.

The idea that
women are not child molesters is a myth. From David Finkelhor's data as reported
in Child Sexual Abuse, New Theory and Research on page 160 uses a 1978 American
Humane Association survey.

"This
reporting practice shows up in the AHA data as a high percentage of cases where
a woman (usually a mother) is cited as a perpetrator in sexual abuse. In Table
10-3, we see that a female was listed as involved in 41% of cases where a male
was victimized and even 31% of cases where females were victimized."

I believe,
Finkelhor in 1984 could not believe that women would molest or could molest in
percentages this high so modified the data by removing women as perpetrators in
any situation which included a male offender.

"However, in
most of these cases where a female is listed as involved, a male was also
involved, and he was the one doing the actual molesting (NCCAN,1991). A more
accurate picture of the number of children who were actually molested by women
comes from looking at the number of cases where a woman was the perpetrator
alone, without a male also being listed. These constitute a smaller percentage
of the cases, 14% of the boys and 6% of the girls."

I do not
agree that a more accurate picture occurs by removing female offenders from the
data as the data was raw and the assumption made was that the women did not
directly participate in the sexual abuse. Even if this was the case, 14% is a
greater percentage of female offenders than earlier expected. During this time,
it was thought that female offenders made up less than 1% of the offenders.

Yet in the
1988 book by David Finkelhor and Linda Meyer Williams, Nursery Crimes, Sexual
Abuse in Day Care, the statistics are even higher for female offenders.

"However, in
the daycare cases we studied, the proportion of women involved was much higher:
in 270 cases, there were 147 female perpetrators, 22 of whom were studied in the
in-depth sample. Although, as in other studies of child sexual abuse, the
majority (60%) of the perpetrators in day-care settings were men, fully 40% of
the abusers were women and 36% of the cases involved female perpetrators. Of 293
boys who were sexually abused where the sex of the perpetrator was known to us,
59% were abused by at least one woman. Of the 471 girls who were sexually abused
where the sex of perpetrator was known to us, 50% were abused by women." P40

This
extremely high percentage which more closely matches the 31% to 41% found in the
1978 AHA study is explained away as due to the larger percentage of female
daycare workers. It is interesting that the data is still slanted against the
male offender because many of the incidents of sexual abuse by men did NOT
involve an employee of the day care but a family member of another child, an
employee of another organization located in the same building as the daycare, or
a family member of an employee. If non-employee were removed from the study the
percentage of female offender would be much higher.

It is
interesting the degree to which various professionals and survivor groups go in
order to continue the idea that men are offenders and women are victims. This
attitude or notion is one reason the cycle of abuse continues. When a child is
sexual with an adult, one of the ideas which the child may pick up is that sex
with an adult is not just acceptable but also enjoyable. Therefore with the idea
that women don't sexually molest, the boys they have been sexual with may come
to the wrongful conclusion that sex with an older woman is not molestation.
Burdened with the misconstrued idea that sex with an adult is OK, the boys may
when they become adults turn and become sexual with children. The mistaken idea
being that since sex as a child did not harm them that sex with a child will not
harm the child.

By denying
that women molest young boys, these young men are not helped in understanding
that sex between adults and children is wrong. When it's okay for a 30 year old
female neighbor to take a 14 year old neighbor boy as a lover, why should it be
considered wrong for the boy when he turns 30 to take a 14 year old neighbor
girl as a lover?

Many male
offenders have described a childhood sexual experience with an adult in terms
which made the incident appear consentual. Some even describe the action to be
their seduction of the adult. How many 10-13 year old boys are truly capable of
seducing a 30 year old woman? In adult-child sex, the adult is always the one in
control whether the adult is male or female. Rarely could a 12 year old boy
force a 30 year old woman to be sexual with him if the woman's sexual boundaries
with children were healthy.

For young
adolescents, the idea of their being the seducer gives them the illusion of
control. Women as offenders also tend to be passive in their sexual abuse of
young boys. Through their passivity, the women delude themselves into believing
that since they did not force the boy, what they did is not sexual molestation.
The boys on the other hand tend to take on the responsibility for the action and
later the burden of shame.

A male
offender related in group therapy a teen-age sexual episode:

"We were on
vacation with our parents and stopped over-night at a motel. My sister was 25
and I was 15. My parents slept in one bed, while my sister and I slept in the
other. I had to go to bed at 10:30 while my sister was able to stay out at the
bar. She returned around midnight. I waited until I thought she was asleep. I
placed my hand on her breast as if by accident. She rolled over on her back. I
very slowly and gently massaged her breast. I got braver and began rubbing both
breasts. I then moved my hand up her leg until my wrist was resting on her
crotch. There was no movement on her part so I very cautiously began caressing
her crotch through her clothes. This continued for what seemed like forever.
When I tried to reach under her night gown she rolled away from me and on to her
stomach. I was afraid she would wake up so I didn't try anything else."

Unfortunately
the therapists in charge of this offender therapy group practiced victim
blaming. This 19 year old male offender went through treatment thinking he was
to blame for all the sexual encounters in his life. Covert and overt abuse of
offenders needs to be acknowledged. In this case, it was finally pointed out
that the sister knew what was happening and allowed it to progress - even though
later stopping it. The sister was in control all along even if the control was
passive. If this situation was a 15 year old girl and a 25 year old brother, the
offender would be much easier to spot.

The point to
drive home is the offender's illusion of control and power as a child is just an
illusion. When offenders are forced to face that they, as children, were not the
initiator but the victim, offenders begin to see how abusers manipulate their
victims. By being on the victim end of an exchange, offenders can no longer
delude themselves with the idea that they controlled the situation. The adult
was in complete control of the situation. The adult could and did allow it to
occur. Control of the action was done by the adult and it was halted when the
adult halted it. Once offenders acknowledge that the adults in their lives
controlled the sexual encounters, they can see their abuse. They also begin to
see how that abuse was passed on by them.

The passive
sexual abuse is not uncommon among women. In 1995, a young lady admitted within
a survivor's newsgroup on the internet that as a teen-age baby-sitter she would
feign sleep while one of the children, (a 5 year old boy) would explore her
body. She was a survivor of incest and in turn was sexual with a younger child.
As an adult in her twenties, she first recognized that her sexualization of this
boy may have led this young man to incest with his younger sister.

The point of
this is not to justify or excuse the actions of boys and men in their
molestation of children but to understand the dynamics of the cycle of child
sexual abuse so that both genders are held to the same level of accountability.
Child sexual abuse can not be stopped if one gender is permitted, ignored, or
encouraged in their sexuality with children.

The reason I
have taken the time to research this issue and to write this article is because
I am a male survivor of female offenders. I did not view my sexual molestation
by baby-sitters and older women as sexual abuse. In fact, I, like many other
young boys, fantasized about being sexual with grown women. I did not realize
the overall dynamics of my sexualization as a boy of 5 when I was first
molested. I entered therapy, not to work on my survivor issues, but because I
was confronted concerning my molestation of my oldest daughter. This was late
1988. I had to work on my issues of control and denial as an offender. I needed
to learn what and where my thinking had taken a wrong turn. This was a long,
winding road, involving therapy, admitting to aggravated sexual conduct with a
minor, and working a 12 Step sexual addiction program. I was in offender therapy
for almost 3 years.

In 1991, I
began to read everything I could concerning child sexual abuse to learn all I
could concerning offender treatment. I came forward on various computer forums
telling my story of molesting and recovery. I found other offenders and together
we shared our recovery and discussed our victory over our past. We also shared
our various losses. I have worked with survivors in helping them to understand
what happened to them and to understand it was never their fault.